Microsoft claims that 65% of small and medium sized enterprises
(SMEs) in the UK have no form of intrusion detection system and
over 15% lack even a basic firewall, according to research results
released yesterday.
This lack of basic protection leaves over one million UK businesses vulnerable to malicious attacks from hackers and susceptible to the crippling effects of computer viruses.
Mike Pryke-Smith, Medium Business Marketing Manager at Microsoft, said:
"UK businesses are leaving themselves wide open to attack. According to PriceWater House Coopers, the average security incident costs £30,000 to repair. That's a massive amount of money by anyone's estimations and for many UK businesses it could be a cost too far."
He continued:
"April Fools day is a notorious time for hoax e-mail viruses to be circulated so it is a good day for businesses to take stock of their security policies and technology. But the threat posed by a genuine virus or a hacker to SMEs is not a joke - it is all too real. Businesses need to be aware that there are simple steps and simple precautions that they can take to deter security breaches and avoid being fooled in the future."
Microsoft is making available a free security toolkit that allows businesses to perform systems checks for vulnerabilities, to make sure they have the correct updates and contains resources to identify areas of security that could be strengthened.
To order the free toolkit, see:
www.microsoft.com/uk/security
